Dakota awoke coughing, feeling as though he'd just drowned in the sea. Either that, or his ex had tried to choke him to death in the bathtub again. Then again, bathwater wasn't nearly as saline as whatever he'd just tasted. He swore it hadn't been this bad the last time he visited the beach as a child with his mum.
He tried to open his eyes, only to realize they were already open. "I'm blind now?" he hoarsely whispered. His voice sounded rusty, as if he hadn't used it in years, and the absurdly salty water wasn't helping. He'd already started leaning heavily on hearing aids in his mid-thirties—now he was losing his sight too?
Wait, hearing aids? The thought surprised him. He wasn't wearing them, yet he could clearly hear the rolling waves, the occasional squawk of a bird, and, if he focused, even insects scuttling in the sand beneath him. It was as though someone had cranked up his hearing to twice what it used to be.
So, I lost my sight and gained enhanced hearing? The idea unsettled him. He sat up, wondering how he was supposed to figure out where he was now that he was practically blind. The cold, fresh air of the beach filled his lungs as he took a deep breath. The waves lapped at his feet, and he realized he must have washed ashore after falling unconscious at sea. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't put together how he'd gone from falling asleep in his bed after a night shift at the bar to becoming glorified driftwood on some random beach.
As he gazed—or rather, stared blankly—toward what he assumed was the horizon, something strange happened. The darkness began to lift, quickly. Too quickly. Within moments, his eyes adjusted enough to make out the ocean stretching before him. Relief surged through him—he wasn't blind after all—but it was short-lived. The Sun had risen in less than a dozen heartbeats. The Sun? His brow furrowed as he looked toward the sky, only to find…nothing. There was light, sure, but he didn't know where it came from.
I'm not on Earth, he realized. Unless this was some bizarrely vivid lucid dream, the only explanation was that he'd somehow landed in another world—a scenario straight out of the novels he used to read.
He pushed himself to his feet, glanced at his body, and shrugged. Finding himself in the malnourished body of a sixteen-year-old boy wasn't the weirdest thing that had happened in the past ten minutes after all.
He took a look at himself, lanky but tall—almost six feet at sixteen, not bad. His clothes, however... He was wearing faded jeans, a thin, long-sleeved T-shirt, and a half-torn jacket emblazoned with the words "Arwin Rocks!" He frowned. Who the hell is Arwin? He'd have to figure that out later.
He walked along the shore for hours, realizing he could see much farther than he should have been able to. From losing my eyes to super-sight, he thought, smirking. The endless stretch of sand and sea blurred into the horizon, and yet somehow, he could make out distant details; rocks scattered far down the beach, a bird perched on a jagged cliff, even fish darting beneath the waves.
As he wandered on, he spotted something unusual, a rough, weathered stone house nestled against a cluster of trees. The house was the first structure he'd seen in hours. Though to call it a house might have been too much. It was pretty much breaking down, and the roof looked like it had been patched together with dried seaweed and thatch. Smoke rose from a hole in the roof, and Dakota felt his stomach grumble at the thought of something to eat.
Cautiously, he approached the hut and looked around. The area around the house was cluttered with oddities; different tools made from bones and shells were scattered around the space. He was about to step closer when a voice startled him.
"Another one," a gruff voice muttered.
Dakota turned to see an old man standing in the doorway. The man's face was lined and weathered, his clothes stitched together from various fabrics, and his eyes sharp beneath bushy gray brows. He held a long, curved stick that looked like a weapon. He gulped.
"Another one?" Dakota repeated. "What's that supposed to mean?"
The old man snorted, stepping out of the hut and pointing the stick at Dakota's chest. "Means you're not the first. Someone washes up here every couple of years. Just someone else stupid enough to fall into the sea of Lethe. Guess it's your turn."
"Wash up here?" Dakota frowned.
"Some people who fall into the sea of forgetfulness do, and by the looks of it, you did too," he said. "Follow me."
Despite the man's rough demeanor, Dakota followed him into the hut. The air inside was warm and smelled of something savory bubbling in a pot over a small fire. The old man ladled out a bowl of stew, shoving it toward Dakota without ceremony.
"Eat. You can sleep on the sofa," he said, gesturing toward a small side chamber with a crude cot. "I'll explain more tomorrow."
Dakota stared at the bowl of stew in his hands, his mind spinning. "Why tomorrow?" he asked.
"Because you're half-drowned, exhausted, and dumb as a rock right now," the old man said bluntly, dropping into a chair with a grunt. "No point in trying to explain things to someone who can barely keep his eyes open. So eat, rest, and let the stew do the work."
Dakota opened his mouth to protest but stopped when he realized just how tired he was. His body ached, his head throbbed, and despite everything, the stew smelled incredible. The man walked to the staircase, and went up, going into what Dakota presumed was his own room.
As Dakota finished the stew and lay down, the weight of the day finally caught up with him. I'm in another world, laying on a cot in the house of someone I've just met after being washed up at the beach. What the hell is happening? This is way too much like the novels, only difference is the lack of a 'System'.
Ding!
[ --SYSTEM--
Name: Dakota Windward
Age: 16
Class: Mage
Rank: 1st Circle
Affinity: Nature (C+) Wind (A-)
Death (SSS)
Skills: Survivalist
Hover (+)
Inventory: Empty
Shop: Locked]
He rubbed his eyes, wondering if the dark blue screen in front of him was fake. He sat up, and the screen moved with him, always within his vision. He tried touching it but his hand just passed through it. I have a System! At least he wasn't completely without hope in this world. And what is that stuff about magic? Does magic exist in this world? Surely not.
He'd of course read the classics in his teenage years. The stories with wands, colorful flashes of light as they threw spells around, and a certain boy with a scar on his forehead. He'd been an avid reader of the series, and wondered if the same mechanics might apply here.
He looked at the screen again, realizing he had something that was SSS ranked, something that the system termed as 'affinities'. Just as he started to wonder what they were, he felt a sharp sting in his head, and realized that he'd just been given information by the System. He tried concentrating on getting some information on the 'skills', and again, after another short, sharp pain in his head, he now knew.
Skills were something that people were born with. Everyone only had one, and there had been no instances of someone having two of them. He guessed that of the two skills he had, one skill was of the body of whomever had fallen into the Lethe, and the second was his own. Skills didn't use magic energy when cast, instead they used something akin to stamina; weaker skills could be cast again and again without tiring the person too much. Skills also usually weren't offensive in nature, and if they were, they were often rather weak. Heck, someone could even be born with a cooking skill, it could be basically anything. Sometimes, skills could also be evolved, provided one got good enough with their basic skill first.
Affinities were also something everyone had. They basically made it easier for a person to cast spells related to whatever affinity they had. One could have two or even three affinities, although the ones with the latter were incredibly rare and highly sought after. To measure it, the priests at the Royal Capital had developed a spell that detected the persons affinity with various elements, and ranked it accordingly. Even if one didn't have an affinity for a particular element, they could still cast basic and even intermediate spells related to the same element, but would find it harder and harder to progress in the elements they had no affinity for.
The Royal Capital huh? Didn't know something like that existed here. I'm probably in what is equivalent to 17th century Europe, only with added the convenience that magic provides.
Just as he was about to attempt to get information about his class as a mage, whatever had happened in the morning happened again. He felt it get steadily darker, and once again, within a dozen heartbeats it was as if he'd gone blind again. He couldn't see anything except the system panel and the light from the fire illuminating the area around it; the fire was rather small, yes, but it only lit the few feet around it. Everything else was just pitch black. "Whatever, I'll ask the old man about this later", he said as he lay back down on the cot.
"Tomorrow..I'll get answers tomorrow", he thought as he fell asleep.